@Goforthestar: Really dude, you are worried about lay branding? Those have branding effects (actually I do not know if more folks know about CMU). It is the NE, and CMU is located there and Georgetown in the midAtlantic. Outside of the Ivy Plus, regional effects rule. Get an education instead of worrying about if all your friends and folks on the street know about the school. You should not have to tell them what it ranks with more so than what you do there and some things it excels at. Also, regardless of what people know, Emory typically performs better Globally than either Georgetown and maybe even CMU because the research infrastructure is currently far better. Georgetown made its mark by producing politicians and CMU became known for insane CS and engineering, both things that are premium for prestige in America right now. Any school (especially top ranked), is worth the money if you actually choose to get an education and use their resources which may as well be infinite compared to most schools.
Also, that just isn’t true that no one has heard of it. The second biggest demographic is New York. And it often has as much international students as other places in say the top 10 and California may be in the top 5. That “never heard of it” thing is a very NE thing. They want you to put a premium on schools in the NE and maybe those Ivy Plus schools with more of a branding effect, but I am confused that they(your parents) know nothing about it. How do they know what people on the East Coast know? They know about what they and maybe their bubble know or care about which is quite a provincialism that seems super common in the NE or even SE to an extent though the NE version reeks of elitism even more so. Either way, get your parents to know what you plan to do at Emory.
The truth of the matter is that Emory is a waste. Tuition is constantly rising and cost is already around $65k per year. Next year, the main dining hall on campus (DUC) is being torn down and being temporarily replaced with the DUC-ling. This dining hall will not be able to accommodate the amount of students that go to Emory, as the DUC already fails to do so. The meal plan is almost $3k for freshman but food options are limited, and for most of the year the food is almost inedible. You would honestly be better off at just about any school around Emory’s ranking, as you’d be getting your money’s worth.
@ATLGA1 That is non-sense. Basically any school (especially a private or elite public) is a waste by such petty criteria. you seriously that worried about a dining hall and the rip off meal plans given by basically any school(hate to break it to the spoiled, but Emory actually has BETTER food than many colleges, even very expensive ones. The bar is super low. I am sorry, but you won’t receive 5 star dining)?. Go eat elsewhere. The priorities are out of whack if a dining hall is what determines the worth of any school. Let us just basically say all schools undergoing major, disruptive, construction projects are a waste. There would hardly be any school (especially) left. Please transfer to your Utopia/non-existent American private or public schools where tuition rises and construction have stopped. Hell, that is part of the reason why tuition rises, because students are more concerned about student centers, amenities, campus aesthetic, than their actual education. For those who can afford/have a huge discount via fin. or merit aid, the top schools are just fine IF you care about and seriously know how to get the best out of your education.
If you are worried about comfortably dining at a cafeteria style venue, then for the next couple years, just for that reason, Emory is a complete waste lol.
But by this person’s account, all U.S. institutions are wasteful, and I would strongly agree. But I would not single out Emory as a culprit. I personally am a fan of strong public honors programs if they are more affordable. But do not pretend like other similarly ranked privates are some magical perfect places. Many have similar issues along with sky high tuition with never ending increases.
Looking at @ATLGA1’s very brief posting history, it looks like he/she applied to Emory ED1. My guess is he/she was rejected and has sour grapes, because post #21 is just incorrect.
@doschicos On the contrary. I was accepted and every good thing I was told about Emory turned out to be false. i am transferring because I did not get the experience that Emory constantly tries to portray. On tours, they only show off the newly constructed dorms, while failing to mention that freshmen could dorm in either Dobbs, Alabama, or Complex. These are of much lower quality, and Complex specifically is poorly located in relation to the rest of campus. Classes were nearly impossible to enroll in because most only had one section with small capacities. I honestly struggled to create a schedule both semesters, as business classes are very limited until actually getting into Goizueta. Additionally, the lack of school spirit here is ridiculous.
Honest question: did you apply to and get accepted into Goizueta? It appears that you didn’t because you’re transferring outside of the Emory system.
Admission into Goizueta does not require the taking of any “business” classes except for intro accounting, which should not be a space limited class. The same goes for other prerequisites like intro economics and calculus I.
Goizueta, as I understand it, wants its applicants to have a well rounded academic and extracurricular background. I doubt that doubling and tripling up on non-prerequisite business courses is what Goizueta wants from its applicants.
I assume Goizueta (a) wants its business courses limited in size for obvious reasons and (2) wants to give priority to those classes to students actually admitted to Goizueta. That’s a logical and very defensible reason for those highly coveted seats in the Goizueta classes to go to Goizueta students, no?
And I doubt that you were promised equal access to Goizueta classes (as a freshman) as juniors and seniors admitted to the Goizueta school BBA program. Admission to Goizueta is by application only (70% admission rate for Emory students, I believe) for a reason.
The fact that admission to Goizueta is by application only is not a secret. You were never promised anything to the contrary.
The fact that Emory is a Division III (not a Division I) is also not a big secret. I assume by “school spirit”, you’re referring to schools with big time football or basketball programs? Emory has never been about that.
@BiffBrown I meant classes outside of business classes have limited capacity. The business classes that I did take were very open, which was at least one positive. Many of the GER classes filled way too quickly, and made it difficult for me to get that well-rounded academic experience that you mentioned. For a school that charges so much, wouldn’t it make sense to have more sections of classes that students clearly are interested in?
Emory offers a very wide range of general education type courses in a very wide range of fields. I don’t understand your difficulty in getting admitted into them.
@BiffBrown My difficulty was due to the fact that I was assigned a late enrollment time. Of course, the appointment time is random so there really was nothing I could do about that. But, most of the classes that I had interest in filled up before I could even attempt to enroll. I was forced to take classes that fit my schedule and had nothing to do with my interests.
The class issue is more of a personal one, but many students here have complained about it and wish that something could be changed in regards to the enrollment process and amount of sections per course.
My real point of posting here was to say that Emory is in fact lacking in many areas. The education from Emory is top-notch; however, academics alone does not make up the “college experience.” On tours, they focus on the beautiful campus, but after a few months here it’s the same thing every day, it’s not special. The fact that the DUC is being torn down makes the food options here even more limited. Students can go to Cox, but this requires Dooley Dollars, which most students have to refill mid-year. This is an extremely expensive school, and frankly is not worth the price tag.
@BiffBrown : The claims are stupid. The only way you would worry about that is if you have SUPER narrow interests or were maybe just interested in the easiest GERs (which may sadly be unusually popular which is the case at most schools, even elites), If that (courses one was interested in) was a serious issue, you don’t attend a medium sized private or liberal arts college, you attend a very large private or public school. The person is petty. Also, there is this thing called aggression. I have never had problems getting into classes and neither have any of the people I mentor over there now. If you are that desperate, professors are nice enough to bend the rules and will often overload unless it is some very popular core course where they really want an enrollment cap.
@ClarinetDad16 Truthfully I wouldn’t stay here the next 2 years to even apply to the B-school. A lot of what prospective applicants know about Emory is through the information that the university disseminates. Therefore, it’s the information that they want students to know about. They leave out the less favorable parts of Emory. Food is one of the necessities of life either way and students (especially freshmen) spend nearly all of their time on campus. If they are looking to get 3 edible meals per day, it is already a problem. With a temporary dining hall, there is no possible way that every student will get the food they need (at the cost of nearly $3k, while this year was $2.6k)
@ClarinetDad16 : K it is kind of obvious why this person went to any top school, quality of life. They are not there for an education so much as a smooth ride. Let them complain. They keep reverting back to talking about food quality. Petty issues and likely low expectations from the get go. They didn’t think to look beyond the tour?
@bernie12 Part of college is living there. The education here is top-notch like I said. You can’t simply ignore quality of life when choosing a school. You can choose not to accept what I said, but I do go here and have experienced everything I have said.
@ATLGA1 Actually, it’s possible for Emory students apply to Goizueta’s BBA program in time to begin at Goizueta as sophomores (second semester sophomores). You don’t need to “stay at” Emory for “2 years” just to apply to, or attend, Goizueta.
You keep talking about food … So you’ve gone and taken meals at every transfer school you’ve applied to just to make sure you eat well the next 3 years?
I still don’t understand your difficulty getting into general education type courses. There are so many, especially at the intro level, and their enrollment for intro classes is typically not tiny. You shouldn’t have had problems there unless your interests are extremely narrow.
And, even if you’re unhappy with your freshman year dorm assignment, your sophomore year dorm assignment would be substantially better.
@ATLGA1 - growth and change happens at virtually every college. The fact that Emory is updating/enlarging the dining hall is a good thing, though an inconvenience for current students. At least the road construction is finished!! And the growth of facilities on Clifton bring all sorts of new off campus dining options. Certainly not for everyday as it would get pricey, but a great Reuben sandwich from General Muir is a welcome option. Back in the day, virtually all that was available was getting pizza at The now closed Everybody’s Pizza in Emory Village (that place was an institution!).
Undergrads frequently get closed out of popular, and sometimes even required classes at many schools. This is not just an issue with any one college/university. If you are unhappy and Emory is not a good fit for you, transfer. But it is a great fit for many happy students.
@BiffBrown The best dorms on campus are the newly constructed freshman dorms. The sophomore dorms include Harris, Evans, Few, Clairmont, and Woodruff. Harris is next to Complex (poor location) and the ground floor will be occupied by freshmen next year due to increased enrollment. Woodruff nor Clairmont is on the main campus. That leaves Evans and Few, which are currently both surrounded by construction.
The question that OP asked was whether Emory was a waste of money. I have brought up enough potential issues to show you all that money is in fact wasted.
If you want a more specific example, we can look at the Migos fiasco this year. Emory signed a contract with a fraudulent third-party company and was scammed out of a significant amount of money. They were then left to scramble days before our Dooley’s week concert to find a replacement, therefore spending more money. This is money of ours that Emory literally wasted. I don’t believe anybody argue that this was justified, as Migos was set to perform at another university the same day as Emory scheduled. Had Emory done sufficient research, this could have been avoided. A similar instance happened at Ball University, but that isn’t a top 20 school.
@ATLGA1
There are some schools with very nice infrastructure like High Point where you can have a nice quality of life. Or those the types of schools you will transfer to?
@ClarinetDad16 : Yes, those places…they are perfect (the students are perfect elsewhere too because, as you know, SPC is student run). He (this person wrote in the Wheel I bet) brings up Migos and the Duc consistently. These are the person’s interest. Let them leave for wherever. I’m sure they will find the perfect quality of life and perfect management they are looking for. Because, you know, Migos, easy GER classes, good cafeteria food. That is what it is all about! I honestly wish Emory and similar level schools can start weeding more of these folks out of the applicant pool, then they can spend more money on improving academic quality and research infrastructure as opposed to building nice, dorms, gyms, dining halls, and paying insane amounts of money to bring some recording artist for a concert.
Also I know for a fact Harvard students are perfect because they know how to get caught cheating on history exams and complained to national news outlets during a recession how the dining halls would stop serving Salmon for breakfast. Yep, Emory is just, ya know, some special case in regular or elite highered lol.
All this talk about Emory’s purported mediocre campus food reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast in which he argues that there’s a tradeoff between outstanding campus food and admitting lower income students:
"Why do some seemingly similar colleges admit more low-income students than others?
Malcolm Gladwell, the popular writer (The Tipping Point, among other books), has an answer for that question. Elite colleges that spend to have quality food and other amenities for students are making choices he finds immoral. Letting students make do with mediocre food would enable these colleges to admit more low-income students and provide them with the aid and support they need to succeed, he maintains.
In his new podcast series, Revisionist History, he makes this point by contrasting Bowdoin College, which is regularly cited by campus guides for outstanding food, with Vassar College, where students tell him the food is mediocre. Both are elite liberal arts colleges, with highly competitive admissions, respected faculty members and beautiful campuses. But Vassar enrolls a much larger share of low-income students than Bowdoin, and Gladwell blames the gourmet food Bowdoin students enjoy.
Gladwell doesn’t just gently suggest that Bowdoin spend more on aid. He says that the college’s dining services represent “a moral problem.” And he closes his podcast by saying, “If you’re looking at liberal arts colleges, don’t go to Bowdoin. Don’t let your kids go to Bowdoin. Don’t let your friends go to Bowdoin. Don’t give money to Bowdoin or any other school that serves amazing food in its dining hall.”